Flight 4892
by godfreyraphael
Summary: AU. Miley Stewart is a pilot for Cash Airlines, with a non-remarkable flying record. However, when a series of events conspire to try to bring her plane down, she finds out that she may just be in for the flight of her life. Rated T for language and content. Features loads of characters from different universes.
1. The Cold Light of Day

A/N: So I've decided to try my hand in some more fanfiction. My current one (Fighting Land for Princess Protection Program) is currently stalled, and in the intervening period, a lot of ideas came running into my mind and decided to stay there. Most of these are original ideas that will probably end up still in my mind, but some of them were easily adaptable into fanfiction format, and so I decided to write them up first.

Now, for a little background. I'm a fan of Hannah Montana, and of Miley Cyrus. I still like her, but the stuff she pulled off recently just staggers me, for lack of a better term. You can say that I'm still living in the past, because in my mind's eye, I still see the old Miley, and the new one is like an entirely different person for me. So in this story, imagine Miley here as Miley during Hannah Montana and a little beyond.

Now, for some context about the story itself. I'm a fan of _Air Crash Investigation_. It's this series which focuses on air crashes and the reasons why planes go down and that kind of thing. And I also watched this movie called _Flight_, starring Denzel Washington. This story will draw elements from that film, but it's not just purely _Flight_ starring Hannah Montana; instead, it's got elements from various things that I've seen and heard, and mixed them up to create an original story. Or at least it's original as a piece of fanfiction. I'm sure nobody's written about Miley/Hannah becoming an airline pilot!

Anyways, here's a new story for Hannah Montana, hopefully offering a brand new perspective to her character. Enjoy.

* * *

><p>Miley Stewart woke up to the sound of a ringing digital alarm clock.<p>

It took her mind some time to remember that she was not in her Malibu beach house. It took her a much longer time to remember that she was actually in some kind of three- or two-star hotel deep in Brazil.

Miley—full name Chelsea Ray Stewart—was a pilot for Cash Airlines, currently holding the rank of captain. Cash Airlines was this large airline based in Los Angeles that was a minor competitor for the real major airlines like American, United, and Delta, and while it operated a large network of domestic and international scheduled flights, it also had a small section entirely devoted to charter flights, which incidentally accounted for a full one-fourth of its yearly income.

Recently, Cash Airlines had been chartered by a large group of American soccer fans to fly them to Brazil to watch the FIFA World Cup. Miley was the pilot-in-command of one of the three Boeing 747s that had flown to Brazil, and she and the rest of the planes' aircrews had then decided to stay and join in on the World Cup experience.

They celebrated when the United States soccer team won against Ghana. They were celebrating what looked to be a victory against Portugal when that team equalized, and that led them to drowning their sorrows in drink. And then they drowned their sorrows in drink once again when the US lost to Germany.

When it was time for the round of 16, the Cash Airlines crew in Brazil were not sure that America could win against Belgium, which is admittedly one of the better sides in the tournament. And when America lost 2-1 to Belgium in extra time, they dealt with their country's loss the way they had been dealing with its losses before: drinking themselves almost to death. Well, maybe not really to death, but for someone drinking alcohol for the first time, the amounts that they consumed would have been deadly.

And of course, Miley Stewart, like many a person who had consumed more alcohol than their body could reasonably handle, had made a very stupid decision: she had slept with a fellow crew member.

Miley couldn't remember much of what happened last night, but she remembered booze—lots of it. Drugs were certainly, involved, too—she distinctly remembered snorting coke. After she snorted that coke, the night became a blur. And she remembered blurry sex in her room. Well, it was morning now, and she would now know who was the lucky—or unlucky—bastard who managed to bed her.

Miley sat up on the bed and swung her legs to the floor, giving her a good view of the bush between her legs and the two averagely endowed mounds on her chest, which were covered by her long brown hair. This glance at her "assets" reminded her that she had to clean herself up before reporting back to the Cash Airlines office for the inevitable exodus of disappointed American soccer fans. And Miley knew that her co-workers knew that she had slept with a fellow co-worker, but the higher-ups in Cash didn't have to know about it.

As Miley stood up to walk towards the bathroom, her companion from last night finally grunted himself awake. "That's certainly a good sight to wake me up in the morning," he said, staring at Miley's hindquarters.

"Like what you see?" Miley asked him, posing suggestively under the doorframe.

"Oh, yeah," the man replied. "Can't say that my girl's given me the same view after a night like last night, though."

"Speaking of your girl, she's so gonna kill you when she finds out that you cheated on her. And listen to me carefully: I said when, not if."

"Oh, you're gonna be as dead as I am when she finds out," he replied, "so you got just as much an incentive as I do to keep this under wraps."

Miley just laughed and stepped into the bathroom. Twenty minutes later, after taking a quick shower, she allowed herself another look at the body of the man she had just slept with. His abs were faint but well-developed, and he had nice, big pectorals, too. But the most important thing about him was the power between his legs. He was neither too big nor too small, and he had this amazing ability to last for a long, long time, even after resting for just fifteen minutes. It had to be genetic, Miley thought. Teenagers didn't last as long as he did after a whole day of rest.

Beck Oliver was no Jake Ryan or Nick Jonas, but he was definitely a nice, strong man. And Jade West—Beck's girlfriend, and a woman with a reputation, in Cash Airlines at least, of being a very jealous woman who guarded her man with the tenacity of ten pit bulls—was very lucky to have Beck for herself, at least in Miley's opinion.

Beck was now sitting up on the bed, having turned on the television while Miley was still in the shower. He had been hoping to catch a replay of last night's soccer game—or any other soccer game, for that matter—but it seemed that this hotel was not really a place where many Americans stayed, because there was no channel on the TV that spoke English. Beck was now stuck with listening to a Portuguese recap of USA vs. Belgium. "You done already?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm done," Miley replied.

"Thank God," Beck exclaimed. "I can't watch this shit anymore. It's all in Portuguese!" As Beck went into the bathroom, Miley sat down on the bed, reached for the remote control, and turned off the television. "Hey, Beck?" she called out.

"Yeah?" Beck replied from within the shower. That thought conjured up another image of a naked Beck in Miley's mind. But now was not the time for such thoughts now.

"Just so we understand each other," Miley continued, "what happened to us was just for that one night, right?"

"What? Of course, Miles." Beck's head popped out from behind the door to the bathroom. "Look, Miles, I've got a girlfriend. You've… sort of… got a boyfriend. I think. I don't know. Probably some actor or singer or somebody."

"Ah, yeah, of course," Miley replied. "Jake Ryan and Nick Jonas. Yeah, to tell you the truth, Beck, they're not my boyfriends, anymore. Jake and I were too young when we were dating, and Nick and I… let's just say it did not end the way we both thought it should end."

"Hah! Tell me about it. I go through this on-again, off-again bullshit with Jade every month or two!" Beck sighed. "Still, it's good to know that someone of your background has gone through the same shit that I have."

Miley chuckled. Beck's relationship problems were as famous among the employees of Cash Airlines as Miley's own exploits with the rich and famous. Well, some of them had been famous when Miley had rubbed shoulders with them.

"So, Beck, aren't you going to ask me how I managed to get an actor and a singer under my spell?" Miley teased.

"Nah," Beck replied as he stepped out of the bathroom with only a white towel wrapped around his waist for clothing. He leaned on the doorframe and added, "Besides, someone who's been a teenage pop star sensation must have her own reasons." This elicited another chuckle from Miley.

"I gotta ask you this question, though," Beck said as he sat down beside Miley. "Why'd you leave showbiz? I mean, I know—hell, we all know—that you revealed yourself to be Hannah Montana just so you could join your friend Lola in Stanford-"

"Her name is actually Lilly," Miley interrupted. "Lola's her alter ego."

"As I was saying," Beck continued, "why did you leave showbiz and join us unwashed masses at Cash Airlines? It's gotta be more than just wanting to be in college with your friend."

Miley went silent for a moment before she replied. "Beck, this is gonna be the first time that I'm gonna say this to anybody who's not my immediate family."

"Okay," Beck said, sitting up a little bit straighter. "I'm listening," he added as he looked into Miley's eyes.

"I got tired, Beck," Miley said. "I got sick of always being in the limelight, night after night. It got to the point where I thought about ending it all, you know. It didn't matter how it came: from a bullet through my brain, from an OD of a cocktail of drugs, it didn't matter, as long as everything was finally over. But eventually I found that I couldn't do it. I was afraid that if I killed myself, I would just ending up hurting my family and friends even more. And I couldn't do that to them, as much as I wanted to stop singing and acting as Hannah Montana. So, instead, I just announced that I was retiring from showbiz, music, everything. And with that, I cut my ties to everything that had been from what I now call 'my past life.' And here I am, opening up to you. You, Beck Oliver, of all people."

Beck smiled, as if saying, "I get that a lot." And then he said, "But why did you choose to become a pilot, though? Why not, I don't know, continue on as Miley Stewart?"

"Oh, come on, Beck, you know that everyone knows that Miley Stewart and Hannah Montana are one and the same. Besides, like I said, I got tired of being always in the limelight. I wanted to be anonymous after having my face being almost instantly recognizable every time it comes up on the TV. And becoming a pilot looked like a logical decision to me at the time. I mean, you sit up at the very front of the plane, behind closed doors, and all you have to worry about is bringing your passengers to their destination safely. And you only have to speak to them through the PA, and we all know that everyone sounds like Darth Vader over the PA, so there's no risk of someone recognizing my voice and saying, 'Hey, our plane's being flown by Hannah Montana!' So, decision made, case closed."

"You always had a fantastic sense of humor, Miley Stewart," Beck said. His and Miley's faces were mere inches apart from each other. Despite the two of them knowing better, they moved closer to each other, and both closed their eyes in anticipation of what was to come. But just as their lips were about to touch, both of their cellphones rang at the same time. Both of them groaned as they moved away to pick up their respective phones.

"It's Jade," Beck said, almost to himself, as he looked at the screen of his phone. "I gotta take this, Miles. Excuse me."

"Yeah, go on ahead," Miley replied as she scrolled through the messages that she had received. One was from a fellow pilot, praising her for bedding Beck under Jade's nose, and warning her to watch her back in case Jade did find out, and was now planning how best to kill her. The other message was from the Cash Airlines office, telling her that she was about to go on flight duty again, for the flight back to Los Angeles. She ignored the first message and sent a brief reply of acknowledgement to the second one. With that done, Miley laid herself down on the bed and sighed. It was going to be a long, long day.

She had no idea of how right she was.


	2. Ground Inspection

Beck and Miley had tried to make sure that Beck could get out of Miley's hotel room without being noticed, but both of them knew deep down that everyone in Brazil working for Cash Airlines knew about their one-night stand, or would soon know about it thanks to their coworkers. After Miley had finally shooed Beck away, she cleaned herself up once again, and put on her uniform. She spent some time adjusting her blouse and her pants and her shoes, and she knew that she was doing that because of what she and Beck had done the night before.

Miley checked out of her hotel just more than an hour before midnight, and she took a taxi to the airport. She passed through the security checks in the terminal area quickly because of her status as a flight crew member, and she headed straight for the plane that would be under her command for this flight. Through the terminal's windows, she could already see the distinctive humped shape of the Boeing 747, with a deep purple underside and a big dollar sign on the tail, the livery of Cash Airlines. It was quite probably the same 747 that she had flown into Brazil almost two weeks before now.

Cash Airlines currently had ten 747s in service, with eight flying on regular, scheduled routes, and two others reserved for high-capacity charters. But due to the sheer amount of US soccer fans heading for Brazil for the World Cup, the administration had taken a third 747 out of regular service just for this charter to Brazil. The three jumbo jets were now sitting in various cities in Brazil, ready for the inevitable exodus of Americans and quite possibly a few fans of other nationalities out of the country.

Miley deposited her baggage, blazer, and cap in the cockpit of the plane, and then she took out a large flashlight, headed out of the cockpit, and went onto the tarmac. There, she turned on the flashlight and shone its beam on the 747's nose landing gear.

Miley Stewart was performing a ground inspection. It was standard operating procedure for every airline in the world, Cash Airlines included. Ground inspections were done by flight crews to check for possible damage inflicted on their aircraft during the hours between arrival and departure. There were numerous word-of-mouth accounts of pilots performing ground inspections and spotting potential problems on the ground, where they could still be easily remedied. And while these ground inspections had sometimes caused delays, pilots would be quick to say that it was better to be delayed and alive, rather than on time and dead.

Miley walked a path under the plane that took her to its landing gear, engines, and basically its entire underbelly. When she was finally done with the inspection, Miley found everything she saw to her liking. There were no dents that weren't there before, leaks that had sprung after their arrival, or any loose objects on the tarmac that could affect the plane's flight. She nodded her approval to the ground maintenance guys, and she turned off her flashlight and made the long trip back to the cockpit.

When Miley entered the cockpit of the 747, she found a woman sitting in the first officer's seat. "Fancy seeing you here, Alex," she said to the woman.

The woman turned around and said, "Fancy seeing you here, Miley." Alex Russo—full name Alexandra Margarita Russo—was a native of New York City, and had joined Cash Airlines at just about the same time that Miley did. Alex had more experience flying the 747 than Miley had, but somehow she had only three bars on her shoulders instead of the four that she clearly deserved. There were rumors that Alex was "underachieving," but however such a thing could be possible in the airline industry, Miley didn't know, and didn't want to know.

"So you're my first officer tonight?" Miley asked as she took the captain's seat in the cockpit, the one on the left side.

"No, I'm just here to push some buttons and throw some switches, and then I'll be out of your hair already," Alex replied in her usual, uniquely sarcastic way. "Of course I'm your first officer tonight, Miles. Why do you think I'm here?"

Miley just laughed at Alex. She knew that the woman always talked like she had a point to prove. "So how's the pre-flight going?" she asked.

"It's coming along," Alex replied as she input a set of numbers into the plane's navigational computer. "Initial navigation waypoint set," she said.

"Are you sure you got the coordinates right?" Miley asked.

"Of course they're the right coordinates, Miley," Alex replied, a little too forcefully in Miley's opinion. "I did the math myself three times. They're good enough for the computer, so they're good enough for me."

"Don't be too hard on me, Alex," Miley said. "I just don't want us to end up like Mike Hotel 370."

"Don't jinx us, Miles."

"All right. I'm gonna shut up now and help you with the checklist. Whereabouts are you now?"

"Trimming the flaps."

As the two of them went through the pre-flight checklist, Miley asked, "Who's gonna be on the third seat?"

"Last time I checked," Alex replied, "Adrian Carr's our flight engineer for tonight." Adrian Carr had a reputation for being slowpoke tardy lazyhead who wouldn't move from where he was if it wasn't to save his ass. The only reason that Miley could think of was the reason why Carr was still with the airline was the fact that he was damned good at being a flight engineer. "All we can do is wait," Alex continued.

"True that," Miley said, with a grin on her face.

Just after Miley had said that, though, someone entered the cockpit once again, but it wasn't Adrian Carr. Miley and Alex turned to face the new arrival. "Sonny, what are you doing here?" both of them blurted out at the same time.

Allison Jade "Sonny" Munroe—of West Appleton, Wisconsin—was yet another pilot that had lots of experience with the 747, and deserved four bars on her shoulders instead of the three that she currently had, in Miley's opinion. Sonny sat down on the flight engineer's seat, looked at them like they were both drooling fools, and replied, "I'm your number three."

"What happened to Carr?" Alex asked. "Overslept once again?"

"No, worse," Sonny replied. "He went down with some kind of tropical bug that no one has supposedly seen before. He caught a fever the day before yesterday, and he was busy redecorating his hotel room brown the day after that. Erwin, Clara, and I just dropped him off at the hospital before going here. There's something about what he caught that makes it just not the same with the usual suspects."

"Yeah, well, hopefully he gets better," Miley said. "No, I'm serious. If what he has is as serious as you're making me think it is, then I really do hope that he recovers from this."

Yet another person entered the cockpit, but this time it was a man, and he was wearing a prune-colored vest over his white shirt and black slacks that clashed brutally with his red hair. He handed over a clipboard with at least ten sheets of paper to Miley and said, in a British accent, "Three hundred fifty-eight passengers and eighteen crew onboard, Captain, for a total of three hundred seventy-six souls. Most of them appear to be disappointed American soccer fans." He put emphasis on the word soccer.

"How about you, though, Ron?" Miley asked him. "What's your take on England's World Cup campaign?"

Ronald "Ron" Weasley let out a chuckle that could be considered bitter. "England never had any chance, Miles," he replied. "The BPL's got too many international players, and we English haven't been developing our own talent. Looks like we'll just have to wait four more years for that second World Cup trophy."

"Don't worry about it, Ron," Miley said. "I'm sure you'll get your second soon. Who knows, maybe that will be between good ol' England and the US of A."

"Oh, now that is high fantasy, Miley," Ron told her. "The United States will only make it to a World Cup final after someone scores seven goals against Brazil."

"Oh, wouldn't that be something," Miley said. "Someone scoring seven goals against Brazil. As if!"

"As for you, Sonny," Ron said, turning to face the flight engineer, "you owe me a favor." And then Ron left the cockpit, taking care to lock it behind him.

* * *

><p>"Congonhas Tower, this is Cash Forty-eight Ninety-Two, requesting permission to take off."<p>

"Roger that, Cash 4892," the Brazilian air traffic controller replied. You are cleared for takeoff on runway 17 right as number two behind Varig 737."

"Copy that, Congonhas, runway 17 right, number two behind Varig."

The Cash Airlines 747 moved onto the threshold of runway 17R, stopping behind a Boeing 737 bearing the livery of the Brazilian airline Varig. The 737 was one of the most popular twinjets in the entire world, and it was decidedly dwarfed in size by the fellow Boeing product just behind it.

"Can you imagine what would happen if we accidentally ran over those guys?" Alex Russo asked what could be considered a rhetorical manner.

"It's gonna be absolute carnage," Miley Stewart replied. "I don't even wanna be thinking about it." It could be considered a morbid conversation, but they both knew that it was just to calm their nerves.

The Varig 737 in front of them began its takeoff roll, and just a few moments later it was already a rapidly shrinking white dot in the night sky of Sao Paulo. The Cash Airlines 747 could have taken off almost immediately after the 737, but there were procedures in which aircrews had to wait for the previous plane's wake turbulence to dissipate before taking off themselves. And while Miley had a feeling that a 737's wake turbulence really wouldn't do much to the 747, rules were rules.

Finally, after ten minutes—supposedly sufficient time for all that turbulence to have dissipated—Congonhas finally granted Cash Airlines Flight 4892 permission to begin its takeoff roll. Miley moved her right hand from the control yoke to the engine throttles. Alex's left hand went over Miley's right as the captain brought the engines up to takeoff power. Behind them, the 747's four Pratt and Whitney engines roared to life.

"Congonhas, Cash 4892 rolling."

Alex then settled her eyes on the airspeed indicator, while Miley kept her eyes looking at the end of the runway, which was as yet still far off in the distance. Alex then began calling out their airspeed in ten-knot increments. At 190 knots, she said, "V-1."

"Rotate," Miley called out in reply, and she pulled back the control yoke. The nose of the jumbo jet began to lift up into the sky, but most of the plane's landing gear was still in contact with the runway. Soon enough, though, Miley heard the slight hint of landing gear going down the runway subside, and eventually vanish. She felt a pulling sensation in her navel that went away when the landing gear finally went silent. Once she was sure that the plane was fully in the air, she called out, "Gear up!"

Alex raised the landing gear lever to the RETRACT position. The lights indicating that the landing gear was fully extended went out one by one, and then they were all extinguished. "Gear up," she repeated.

"Flaps up."

"Flaps retarded."

Miley breathed out. It was twelve hours from Sao Paulo to Los Angeles; twelve hours before she could finally leave behind her memories of the events in Brazil. She had no idea that these twelve hours were almost the last hours of her life.

* * *

><p>AN: As always, leave a review if you liked it, and leave a review even if you didn't like it. Praise and criticism is both highly appreciated!


	3. Permission to Land

It was six-thirty in the morning when Cash Airlines Flight 4892 was finally within range of Los Angeles International Airport. The flight from Sao Paulo to LA had taken between twelve to thirteen hours, and a backup crew had flown the plane for half the duration of the flight to let the primary crew get some more needed sleep before they finally returned to the cockpit and land the plane. However, when the pilot of Flight 4892 requested for permission to land on the airport, they received a reply that they were certainly not expecting.

"Cash 4892, LAX," the air traffic controller replied, "you are to enter a holding pattern. We are simply overloaded at the moment."

Captain Miley Stewart of Flight 4892 looked at her copilot before turning her attention back to the ATC. "Say that again, LAX," she said. "You're overloaded?"

"Roger that, Cash 4892," the ATC replied. You arrived at a very busy time for us right now. We got a lot of other flights being diverted to us from San Diego and San Francisco."

"What kind of problems?"

"We don't know much of anything yet, and what we're hearing is all conflicting anyway. They're claiming everything from a strike to a riot to an earthquake. That's California for you."

"How's that gonna affect us? Our flight, I mean."

"We're sorting out all the flight as we speak, 4892. You're all gonna be landed as soon as possible once you're all sorted out."

Miley was not reassured much by the ATC's words, and judging by the looks on the rest of her flight crew, neither were they. But at least it was better than nothing at all. "Roger that, LAX," Miley told the ATC. "We'll be going quiet for now, but we will still be in touch." To her copilot, she asked, "What do you think, Alex?"

"I think it's really something serious," First Officer Alex Russo replied. "The ATCs take their jobs very seriously, and there's no way any of them will try to pull a prank on a flight crew. Worst case scenario is that it'll take them at least an hour or more to do all this 'sorting out.' At most it'll take them an hour and a half, but by then we should already be on the ground."

"Okay," Miley nodded. "We're agreed in that. Sonny, how's our fuel situation?"

Flight Engineer Sonny Munroe turned to look at her instruments before facing Miley once again. "We've got at least ninety minutes to a hundred minutes of fuel left," she said in reply.

"More than enough," Alex added.

Miley nodded. "All right, girls," she said. "We'll just keep this holding pattern until we finally get clearance. That okay with the both of you?" Alex and Sonny nodded their agreement. Miley then switched to the plane's PA system. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking," she said. "We'll be experiencing a slight delay in our arrival today due to a situation that has developed on the ground…"

* * *

><p>An hour after Flight 4892 had entered a holding pattern in the skies above Los Angeles, Miley asked the ATC once again, "LAX, Cash 4892. How are we going with that clearance?"<p>

"Roger that, Cash 4892, it's coming along," the ATC replied. "You are number fifteen to land on runway seven left."

"Sweet niblets," Miley muttered to herself. "Number fifteen to land. What else could go wrong?"

"Miles, the weather radar's picking up a big low pressure area just off the coast of LA," Alex said. "It's gonna be over LAX in five minutes or less. And our pattern's gonna touch the edge of the area, so we're gonna be in for some rain."

"Oh, this is unbelievable," Miley muttered. _You just had to tempt fate, didn't you_, she thought to herself.

They entered the rainstorm that had developed from the low-pressure area just four minutes later, just as Alex had predicted. As the wipers wiped off the rain that was pattering away at the cockpit's windows, Miley contemplated calling LAX again about their clearance, or just up and declaring an emergency. Finally, she decided to give the tower one more chance, and she switched frequencies and said, "LAX, Cash 4892. How goes the clearance?"

"Cash Airlines 4892, this is LAX," a different voice, a different ATC, said. "You are cleared as number sixteen to land on runway seven left."

"Say what!" This time Miley didn't even bother going off the comms. "We were number fifteen to land on LAX just five minutes ago! Now you're telling me that we've gone down to number sixteen?"

"We apologize for the inconvenience, Cash 4892," the ATC said, not sounding genuinely contrite at least to Miley's ears. "We are handling such a large amount of traffic right now, and the rainstorm's also added more delays to the landings."

"Well, you better get your stuff sorted together, and soon!"

"Is it that time of the month again for her?" Sonny asked Alex, nodding towards Miley's general direction. She took care to cover the microphone of her headset, but she was sure that the cockpit voice recorder would still be able to pick up what she just said.

"With Miley, you never know," Alex whispered back.

"Jesus Christ," Miley muttered to herself. "Things are going to shit down there. Five more minutes, and I'm going to declare an emergency. Get the cabin crew ready."

* * *

><p>Beck Oliver, Cash Airlines Senior Air Steward, picked up the telephone mounted on the wall separating the front galley from the passenger compartment, and said, "Yeah?"<p>

"Beck, it's Alex," Russo said from the cockpit. "There's all sorts of shit going down on the ground, and the captain's planning on declaring an emergency just to cut ahead of the line."

"How are we doing, exactly?"

"Well, we're not yet really low on fuel, but we're certainly about to hit it," Alex replied truthfully. "We're just about to fly on fumes now. Miley wants everyone back there to get ready in case we do go for broke."

"Got that." Beck then hung up, and then he called over the rest of the cabin crew. There were twelve of them in total, three men and nine women. Beck explained the situation to them as best as he could, and while they were all in agreement that the situation was alarming to say the least, they also agreed that there was no need to alarm the passengers just yet.

* * *

><p>"Sonny, how much fuel do we have left?"<p>

Sonny made a tutting sound. "Something's definitely wrong here, Miles," she replied. "According to the math, we should still have twenty to thirty minutes of fuel left. But every time I run them now, it says that we've only got ten minutes left."

"Are you sure you're doing the math right?" Miley asked. "Are you carrying the one, multiplying before adding, and all that?"

"Of course I am," Sonny replied, a little defensively. "That's why all this isn't making any sense. The math says that we've got at least twenty minutes' flying time. But the plane is saying that we've only got ten minutes left."

"That's probably a fault in the instrumentation," Alex added.

"Okay, that settles it," Miley said. "Now we're really in an emergency. Shit! Shit just escalated quickly. This was just supposed to be cutting in line. Now it's a real thing." Miley keyed the mike and said, to the LAX tower controller, "LAX, Cash 4892; we are declaring an emergency. There appears to be a problem with our instrumentation. According to our instruments, we only have ten minutes of fuel left, but our flight engineer's saying that we should still have twenty to thirty minutes left. We're not gonna take the risk."

"Cash 4892, LAX, we copy your emergency," the controller replied. "You are now to enter a holding pattern around waypoint NASSER, on flight level 120." Flight level 120 translated to twelve thousand feet.

"Roger that, LAX," Miley replied. "4892 out." To Alex, she said, "Get the cabin crew ready to prep the passengers. This is gonna be a fast descent."

As Alex got in contact with the cabin crew, Miley turned on the FASTEN SEATBELTS sign. "Seatbelts, ladies," she said. Aside from the conventional seatbelts that went around the waist, the pilots' seats were also equipped with four-point harnesses that resembled those worn by racecar drivers. "Ready?"

"Like hell I am," Alex muttered. Even in an aerial emergency, Alex's natural sarcasm still managed to make its presence felt among the rest of the flight crew.

Miley leaned towards the autopilot controls and turned a white knob. Beside it, a red display began counting down from the 14000 that it had been initially displaying down to 12000. The 747's nose began to tilt to a shallow downward angle. The four Pratt and Whitney engines began to whine as more air was forced into their intakes by the descent. But then suddenly, an alarm went off inside the cockpit. It wasn't a very loud alarm, meaning it wasn't a master alarm or something else that was serious.

Alex looked at the numerous instrument dials in the middle of the cockpit. "Engine four is losing power," she said. "Nope, make that engine four just lost power. Oh, man, this is not looking good."

"Shut it down," Miley ordered. Sonny reached out and lowered the throttle for the number four engine down to the IDLE position. "We'll wait for the plane to level out first, and then we'll try to restart it." The three of them waited as the altimeter settled to twelve thousand feet. As the autopilot held the plane level in the altitude assigned to it by the pilots, Alex and Sonny went over the proper procedures for restarting a 747 engine.

"Okay, let's try for twenty percent," Alex said.

Sonny moved forward the throttle a little bit. The central instrument display showed that engine four was now producing twenty percent of the thrust that it was capable of producing. "Okay, let's take it up to fifty percent now," Alex said. But just before Sonny's hand could move the throttle forward once more, the engine lost power once again. This time, despite their best efforts, the engine wouldn't start again. "It just won't start," Alex finally said in defeat.

"Okay, forget about engine four for now," Miley said. "We still have three working engines. We can fly on three engines, right? Besides, we only got a few more hundred miles to fly, and then this will finally be over. We can do this."

Seven minutes later, the crew could finally see the landing lights leading them towards LAX and safety. "Gear down," Miley commanded. Alex reached for the landing gear lever and lowered it. Slowly, the lights indicating that the landing gear was fully deployed and locked in place went on one by one. For a brief moment, the crew let a bit of optimism into their minds. Maybe they were gonna make it out of this emergency alive and unscathed, after all.

Suddenly, the other three engines went silent too. The entire cockpit went dark now that there was nothing to provide power to the plane, and everyone's ears rang from the silence, after having become used to the background hum of the engines for almost thirteen hours. Everything electronic within the plane, from the lights to the instruments to the flight computer itself, went out. The sudden silence was very eerie, and it set off a primal fear within the hearts and minds of everyone onboard the plane, both passengers and crew.

Miley looked at Alex in disbelief. Alex looked at Sonny in terror. Sonny looked at Miley in horror.

"We're fucked," Miley thought as she saw the ground below rush up very quickly towards, as if eager to claim its latest victim.

There was a horrible crunching sound as metal made contact with earth. And then came the earsplitting sound of metal being torn apart, and just as Miley Stewart felt that she would to tear her ears off just to keep from hearing that horrifying sound again, the world thankfully went black.

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><p>AN: Once again, any comments and commentary are very much welcome!


	4. Wake Up Call

She had no idea how long she had been asleep, and when Miley Stewart opened her eyes for the first time since God knows how long, the world had become too bright. She squinted, and tears flowed from her eyes. Finally, her vision seemed to have returned to normal, and she began to take stock of her surroundings.

She was in a hospital room, if the white walls and strong smell of antiseptic were everything that she needed to know. She had more than a dozen wires and tubes on her body connected to an equal amount of complicated-looking machines. An intravenous line fed some sort of clear liquid into a tube in her arm, and when she tried to sit up, she felt something sticking into her lady area. She looked down and saw a catheter leading out from her vagina to a plastic bag filled with a yellow liquid that had to be her pee.

"Oh, sweet niblets," she muttered.

When she spoke, Miley saw three figures stir from the corner of her eye. Miley looked up, and she saw her father, her brother, and her best friend running up from the couches and chairs where they had fallen asleep while watching her. "She's awake!" they said. "She's finally awake!"

"Welcome back, Miles!" Miley's best friend, Lilly Truscott, said. "Man, Miley, you really had us all scared when the rescuers found you unconscious. We thought you weren't gonna wake up ever again!"

"Wait, what?" Miley asked.

"Lilly, you really should have gone easy on her," Miley's father, Robbie Ray Stewart, told Lilly. "She's still having trouble taking everything in."

"Huh? What are y'all talking about?" Miley asked once again.

"Don't mind us, Miles," Jackson, Miley's brother, replied. "We ain't talking about anything that's real important for you."

"Jackson Stewart!" Robbie Ray said. Jackson looked at their father, and he turned back to Miley and said, "All right, the thing is that you were already unconscious when the rescue workers finally managed to pull you out of the wreckage, and then your brain swelled up when the EMTs tried to treat you. They had to put you in an induced coma. It was supposed to last only twenty-four hours, at most. When you didn't wake up after twenty-five hours, Lilly and Dad here expected the worst. They thought you weren't gonna wake up ever again at all. I said that all we had to do was wait, and you would eventually wake up sooner or later. Kind of like old times, when you're supposed to wake up at like eight o'clock, and then you end up sleeping until noon."

"Yeah, right," Miley said, nodding her head. That was typical Jackson: the more he tried to say that he wasn't really worried, the more Miley knew that he was very, very worried. Just then, the door to her room opened, and a well-dressed black man entered the room. "There's my favourite pop star turned pilot!" he said jovially.

The man was Cornelius "Cory" Baxter, a successful pilot, businessman, and lawyer, and the current legal representative of the Cash Airlines Pilots' Union. Cory was originally from San Francisco, just up the coast from LA, and he had moved to Washington DC when his father had been hired as a chef for the White House. After college, Cory had entered one of Cash Airlines' sponsored flight schools on a whim, but it turned out that he had more than just whims in him, if his high marks during the training courses told the tale. As soon as he was finished with flight school, Cash Airlines had hired Cory almost immediately. Cory rose through the ranks quickly, and in his spare time he had begun investing his money on the stock market, of course with an emphasis to Cash. When Cory's stocks began to pay off, he became a very rich man almost overnight. There were rumors that Cory was the richest man in the whole of Cash Airlines, second only to the airline's reclusive owner, Cabot Dobson. And those rumors were most probably true. Cory could start up his own airline with his own net worth, but he was loyal to Cash, the place that had made him rich in the first place. And he had no intention of leaving.

Cory squeezed himself in between Jackson and Robbie Ray as he took up a place before Miley's bed. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Miles," he said.

"Yeah, I sort of guessed that already," Miley replied. "What happened?"

"You crashed."

"Fuck that!" Miley blurted out. "I know that we crashed! What I meant was what happened after the crash? Did the plane blow up or something like that? If the plane blew up, you better check for explosives, because we were running on empty when we crashed."

"Uh, Miley, about that," Cory said, and he gestured towards Lilly, Robbie Ray, and Jackson. Robbie Ray took the cue and said, "Well, we'll be leaving you with my daughter now, Mr. Baxter," he said. "Lilly, Jackson, come on. They've got some important business matters to discuss."

Once Robbie Ray, Lilly, and Jackson had left Miley's room, Miley turned to Cory and asked him, "What was that all about?"

"The crash of Cash Airlines Flight 4892 has now become a national and criminal investigation," Cory replied. "Everyone from the LAPD to the FBI to the NTSB's down here checking out the wreckage now. So, you know, can't really tell people about where we are in the investigation. Except for you, obviously."

Miley stuck her tongue out blew a raspberry. "Oh, please, Cory, stop it," she said with fake enthusiasm. "You're making me blush!" And then she turned serious. "All right, Baxter, give it to me straight now," she said. "How many?"

Cory looked Miley in the eye and said, "Three hundred twenty-eight."

"Oh, my God!" Miley said, shaking her head. "That many dead?"

"No!" Cory said. "No! Jesus Christ, Miles, sometimes you just don't do yourself any good!"

"All right, Cory, how many died?"

"Forty-eight, as of the NTSB's last count."

"Oh, shit!" Miley muttered, running her hand on her face. "Those were forty-eight who were under my responsibility! And they died during my flight. My flight, Cory!"

"Hey, Miley, don't kick yourself for it," Cory said. "You still managed to save three hundred twenty-eight people, right?"

"I guess you're right, man," Miley finally agreed. "But still…" Yes, she might have saved a lot of people, but Cory knew that the deaths of those forty-eight people onboard Flight 4892 would gnaw on Miley's soul for years to come.

"Okay, at least that part's finally over," Miley muttered. "What day is it, Cory?"

"July 15."

"Oh, shit!" Miley said again. The United States had been defeated by Belgium in the World Cup on July 1, and Flight 4892 had taken off from Sao Paulo at exactly midnight of July 2. If Cory was telling the truth, then Miley had been in a coma for a good fourteen days now. From her perspective, it was just like the moment between falling asleep and waking up, but to her family she was sure that it had been the longest fourteen days of their life.

"All right, man," Miley finally said after a few moments of contemplation. "Who won the World Cup?"

"Germany," Cory replied. "Made myself about fourteen million bucks in Vegas on that bet alone. But, you know what, Miles? A funny thing happened to Germany on its way to the World Cup Final. During the semifinals, they faced Brazil. And you know what happened? Germany scored five goals against Brazil in the first half. And then they got two more through in the second half. Sure, Oscar scored one for Brazil just before the game ended, but who cares about that? Brazil lost to Germany, 7-1!"

"I'll be damned," Miley said. "Maybe the 2018 final _will _be USA versus England, after all."

"What was that again?"

"Just something Ron and I talked about before the flight," Miley said. "Speaking of which, how's the rest of the crew? Alex, Sonny, Beck, Ron, Ervin, Clara, Ginny, Annabeth, everyone else? Are they all right?"

"Oh, they're all okay," Cory replied in an off-hand manner. "Except for one."

"Shit. Who bit the dust?"

Cory looked at Miley again and said, "Beck."

"Oh, God!" Miley said. "What happened to him?"

"I don't have all the details as of today, but rumor has it that he doesn't have a head anymore."

"Oh, God!" Miley repeated. "What are we gonna tell Jade?"

"Don't worry about it, Miles. I already broke the bad news to her."

"How did she take it?"

"Not very well, obviously. Look, Miles, don't dwell on it so much," Cory advised her. "What's done is done. Beck is dead, and there's nothing else we can do about it, except maybe just pray for his soul or something like that. Now this is what I want you to do: get some rest, get your ass healed ASAP, and let me do my job. I got this."

"Ah, shit, Cory," Miley muttered. "I give up. This shindig's all yours now."

"Thanks, Miles," Cory said. "Let me hand you back to your family." And just like that, Cory Baxter slowly made his way out of the room, just as Miley's family went back in. Miley had a lot of questions that she had wanted to ask the man, but her family came first, and they had a lot more questions for her. In the end, Miley Stewart just wanted to fall asleep again. But she doubted that her sleep from now on would be dreamless, not after she had learned the scope of the tragedy that was the crash of Cash Airlines Flight 4892.

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><p>AN: Once again, drop a review if you want to say something about my story! Every little bit is appreciated all the same!


	5. The Men Behind the Scenes

Cash Airlines' headquarters was located in a tall, newly-built skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles. It occupied the top thirty floors of the building, and held the naming rights to the entire property for at least fifty years. Most of Cash Airlines' administrative functions were handled from this building, and there was dedicated office space in the building for monitoring all of the aircraft in its fleet for status reports and possible malfunctions. The topmost floor was reserved for high-level officials and their respective staffs, and there was a single expansive office specially reserved for the chief executive officer of the airline. The office itself was divided into an anteroom, a conference room, a workplace for the CEO, and a private restroom. There was enough room in the anteroom for three secretaries.

Cory Baxter walked into the lobby of the Cash Airlines Building, and strode purposefully towards the elevator. He greeted the girl manning the elevator, and then he waited as more people got into the elevator after him. By the seventieth floor, Cory was the only one left besides the elevator girl, and he nodded his head to her as he got off. As he entered the CEO's office, one of the secretaries stood up and told him, "Mr. Brabant is waiting for you in the conference room."

"Already?" Cory asked in reply jokingly, but it seemed like his little joke went over the secretary's head.

"Yes, Mr. Baxter," she replied. "Mr. Okazaki and Mr. Godunov are already in the conference room with Mr. Brabant."

"All right," Cory said, going into the conference room.

The conference room of the Cash Airlines CEO was a large and modern affair dominated by the liberal usage of glass on almost every available surface. A large glass table sat on top of a massive obsidian slab. Two walls made of tempered glass—the same stuff that was used to make car windshields—gave a breath-taking panorama of the Los Angeles skyline. Two rows of ten chairs with foam-padded glass backs flanked the two long sides of the table. At the head of the table was one of the few items in the office that wasn't made—fully or mostly—of glass; the high-backed leather chair of the CEO himself.

There were only three people in the room besides Cory Baxter. Two of them were the other legal representatives within the airline. James Okazaki represented the stewards' union, while Boris "Barry" Godunov was responsible for the mechanics' union. Cory often referred to them as Sulu and Chekov, mostly because they looked like the _Star Trek_ characters. The ones from the JJ Abrams film, not the original series. Meanwhile, the third man, who was standing before the full-length windows staring at the LA skyline, was someone that Cory knew really well.

He was Theodosius Brabant, known to the public, the media, and his close friends as "Theo." He was the CEO of Cash Airlines, and he was a tall, swarthy, and stocky Englishman with the distinguished bearing of a nobleman. Brabant had been close friends with Buford Dobson, late father of current Cash Airlines owner Cabot Dobson, since their days in Cambridge. When Dobson's venture into the air travel industry had become a profitable enterprise, he had hired Brabant as CEO, leaving Buford free to focus on his family and growing his fortune even more. When he died just a few years ago, he left the entire company to his son Cabot, up to and including the controlling stake of Cash Airlines. While this gave Cabot virtual power of veto over the airline's shareholders and board of directors, he rarely participated in board meetings, if at all. It seemed that he had delegated the job of actually running the airline to Theo Brabant, his tutor and mentor, so he could pursue the life of a rich and eccentric recluse.

Brabant didn't look like he had noticed Cory coming into the room, but when he spoke, he addressed the new arrival. "How's Captain Stewart doing, Cornelius?" he asked.

"She's finally woken up from her coma, Mr. Brabant," Cory replied. "I don't think she's in any mood to talk to anyone soon, though."

Brabant waved it off, muttering, "It's all right." He continued to stare at the skyline for a few more moments before finally speaking up. "For more than thirty years, Cash Airlines has operated smoothly and flawlessly," he said. "Now we've finally had a fatal accident. And it's just about a year or so after that thing in San Francisco. We are already under a lot of scrutiny for the two weeks since the crash, and we should all expect that this will only escalate. NTSB's going to leave no stone unturned for their investigation into the crash of Flight 4892. They're going to root out every possible cause of the crash until they find out what really happened."

Brabant then turned around to face the others. He bore a striking resemblance to the actor Hugh Grant, who was probably just a year or two his senior. "Gentlemen," he continued, "what I am about to tell you must not get out of this office. I have a friend who has a friend who has a friend who is deep within the NTSB investigation. And I've heard from this source of mine that they've already managed to narrow it down to two causes by now: pilot error, or air traffic controller error. My contact has also told me that the investigation is already close to downloading the conversations between the pilots and the ATCs, and there are even rumors that there might have been some confusion in the tower because of the numerous flights, and therefore Flight 4892 was not given the landing priority that they had requested due to certain concerns with their fuel."

Brabant then sat down on the high-backed leather chair at the head of the table. "There is a problem from our end, though," he said. "The hospital has just released the results of the blood tests that they've conducted on the members of the crew of Flight 4892. It reveals that two of our employees have had vastly elevated levels of alcohol in their bloodstream, and they've even detected traces of marijuana and cocaine in these employees. Okazaki, the files."

Okazaki, the stewards' union legal representative, took out a large stack of folders from his briefcase and handed them over to Brabant. Cory managed to make out the names on the folders. STEWART; RUSSO; MUNROE; OLIVER; WEASLEY; SIKOWITZ; OSWALD; WEASLEY; CHASE; HARMER; BUNDY; MARONEY. Cory recognized them as the names of the crew of Flight 4892.

Brabant took two of the folders and then held them aloft. "These two people are the ones with the alcohol and drugs in their bloodstreams," he said as he opened the two folders. "They are Senior Air Steward Beck Oliver and Captain Miley Ray Stewart. Now, I could hardly care less about some drunken and drugged steward, but we also have a drunk and drugged pilot on our hands. The airport lawyers are going to have a field day when they find out about this, because this will give them the reason they need to pass the blame to us and instead of their own ATCs. We cannot allow that to happen." Brabant slammed down the folders onto the table, almost in disgust.

"I will not let our airline take the blame for something that may not actually be our fault," he continued. "We need to make sure that the NTSB finds out that the airport is to blame, and not us."

"I know a way."

Eyes turned towards the source of the voice that had just spoken. It was a man who had just entered the conference room, and was standing off to the back, not really involved with the discussion but near enough to hear what they were talking about. "I know a way to make any kind of evidence inadmissible in a court of law," he repeated.

"And who might you be?" Brabant asked him.

"Mr. Brabant," Cory said, walking over to the new arrival, "may I introduce Thomas Bagration, one of the best young criminal defense attorneys in southern California." Cory walked Bagration over to Brabant, and the two men shook hands.

"I've heard your name before, I think," Brabant said. "You were the defense for the killers in the Ganton shootings, yeah?"

"Guilty as charged, Mr. Brabant," Bagration replied.

"So, you know a way to get Captain Stewart's bloodwork dismissed in court?" Brabant asked.

"Sir, blood work is a piece of cake to get junked in court," Bagration replied confidently. "I can even do it in my sleep. The blood was drawn from the patient without her permission. Improper storage of the blood led to fermentation of latent alcohol in the sample. Need I say more?"

Brabant shook his head. "No need, no need," he said. "You can take a seat, if you like, Mister…"

"Bagration."

"Of course." Brabant walked back to the head of the table and said, "We are now in the spotlight of today's news, gentlemen. And it looks like we will be staying there for days to come. We are on every network there is—NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, BBC, and all the other three-letter acronyms out there. But, gentlemen, our main concern is to keep our airline as blemish-free as possible throughout this investigation. Remember, we are not at fault for this crash. But we have to make sure that the NTSB, the government, and the public, knows that."

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><p>AN: As always, leave behind your thoughts and comments. Tell me if you think it's good or bad! Any reviews are appreciated!


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